Bovis, never one to shy away from chivalry, pulled his apron over his head to reveal his ice-cream-sundae-embroidered ‘Crocombe’s Ices’ T-shirt and crooked his elbow at her. ‘The parlour can stay closed for the afternoon. Will you allow me the honour of ’companying me inside?’
Mrs Crocombe hesitated. ‘I shouldn’t really. He could arrive at any moment and then what would he think, me on your arm?’
‘I knew he was not to be trusted,’ Bovis said, over-confident as always. ‘That’s what I told him last night. I did not hold back. And I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘You were right? About what? You spoke to him?’ The tone of Mrs Crocombe’s voice cleared the hallway of everyone except a gulping, suddenly nervous Bovis. ‘What did you do, Mr Bovis?’
‘Nothing any friend wouldn’t do. I told him I didn’t like the look of him, not from day one. Sliding around, an oily type. I said if you thinks you’re going to get your hands on Letitia’s residents’ emergency payment, you’ve got another big think coming your way, mister.’
‘What? No, you wouldn’t do such a thing?’ Her hands shook as she covered her mouth.
‘I would and I did. Don’t think I didn’t see him with his ears flapping every time the till chimed! He wanted your ten thousand pounds, guarantee it. And anything else he could get his hands on!’
‘How dare you!’ Her voice shook as she slapped a weak hand to Bovis’s chest. ‘You offended him, accusing him of… what? Being a lothario, only interested in that extra money coming to me?’
‘Gone, i’nt he?’ said Bovis, not understanding the pain he was causing, thinking as always that he was doing absolutely the right and proper thing. ‘I had to protec’ my friend, and my boss.’
‘Protect me? Mr Bovis, you’ve scared away the only chance at love I’ll ever have!’ With this, she burst into silent sobs and hurried away, leaving Bovis red-faced and uncomprehending.
‘Not your last chance,’ he cried after her, his hand stretched out in useless supplication. She was gone, and once more Bovis had managed to spoil another big occasion for another Clove Lore resident. Tugging at his T-shirt, he plodded in her wake.
Elliot and Jude had listened to the whole exchange with wide eyes and clamped lips, from their spot behind a grand stone column by the vestibule’s cloakroom.
‘Oh dear,’ Jude said, once she was sure they were gone. ‘It looks like we’re losing wedding guests now too.’
‘Poor Mrs C.,’ agreed Elliot, just as Daniel and Ekon made their way inside, looking all around them at the dark panelling and stucco ceiling. Daniel delivered a message from her dad back home: he was baking up a storm in her kitchen and not to wait for him, but to get wed on time.
Jude turned to Elliot with panicked eyes and said she most definitely was not going to get married without her dad there.
The next half hour passed in a blur of guests arriving, the murmur in the ballroom growing with whispered rumours about furious caterers and wedding DJs. Someone blamed ‘Minty actin’ all high and mighty’ and another replied, ‘What’s new ’bout that?’ And everyone looked at the time and tutted and turned in their chairs to watch the doors while the sky grew duller with every minute that passed.
The celebrant went out to her car to retrieve her portable speakers and everyone cheered when she connected them to her phone and hit play on her ‘pre-celebration’ Spotify list, filling the ballroom with jangly instrumental covers of Taylor Swift and Nick Drake, and even though Tom Bickleigh was cracking jokes about the whole wedding party doing a runner, it definitely helped settle the crowd’s nerves.
The first drops of rain pattered gently on the high ballroom windows and nobody wanted to say it, but they were all thinking the same thing; that it didn’t bode well at all.
Soon, only Elliot, his best man, and Jude were waiting by the ballroom doors. Minty was on her phone somewhere and only occasional hoots of disbelief and despair could be heard from her as she tried (and failed) to get her suppliers back on side.
Jowan arrived from giving Aldous one final scheduled walk on the lawns pre-ceremony, when Elliot’s colleague Anjali rushed past them all, bringing with her a little menagerie of creatures from the surgery.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, smiling uneasily, and lifting the carry case to show Elliot a sorry-looking kitten with a bandaged ear. ‘Couldn’t leave Felicity with no one at the practice to watch her.’
Elliot poked a finger through the bars. ‘Hello, little one, how are you feeling?’
The cat hissed at Anjali’s black Labrador, Terrence, who trotted placidly by her side. He’d at least made an effort and was in a bowtie. ‘What’s a vet’s wedding without a dog?’ Anjali added, knowing she was pushing it.
‘I’m only glad you didn’t bring those ferrets that are in with whooping cough!’ said Elliot.
‘Did consider it,’ quipped Anjali, giving her colleague a squeeze on the arm before she stepped inside the ballroom with her animals to take her seat. Elliot gave Terrence’s ears one last scratch before he plodded after his owner.
‘Aww, man, it’s really special having the animals here,’ he said to Jude. Then something made Elliot freeze in thought.
After a long moment where Jude shook her head smilingly, knowing exactly what was about to happen, Elliot said, ‘Monty? I saw Mr Moke from the donkey sanctuary heading inside a minute ago. Can you go grab him for me?’
They had time to kill anyway, waiting for Jude’s dad, and everyone in the ballroom seemed happy enough gossiping about how Jude’s cake had been sat on by one of the waiting staff that morning.
Monty dashed all across the estate following the groom’s instructions while Jude fixed her make-up and made herself ready.
Leonid reappeared with the estate garden’s last roses of the summer, simple white blooms, one each for the men in the bridal party’s buttonholes. For Jude, there was a cluster of waxy greenery that smelled of the rhododendron walk and the camellia grove, and at the centre of the lovely cluster he’d placed long stems of bright pink nerines and bobbing Japanese anemones.
